Hyperborea may be the game I enjoy the most relative to my total lack of skill in it. Didn’t finish last — the player who just learned it tonight won that honor — but damn, I’ve just never cracked the game’s code.
It’s been languishing half forgotten in my one closed cabinet. I opened it this evening, saw many many favorites also locked away and forgotten, and sighed.
Sometimes derping around is totally fun!
My least favorite game played this year, IIRC.
luke crane I remember!
I like this one, but I’m a sucker for a game that photographs well. Which, I know, is a weird thing to factor in to how much I like a game.
I liked it. My group was lukewarm to it. It lives in the car, so it’s available, but it doesn’t get as much play as I’d like it to.
I’m not much of a fan of it RAW, but with a couple house rules (to make the turns less monolithic) I like it better than Orleans.
Adam Blinkinsop whoa, what house rules are these?
We did have one player with a really robust turn (super juiced cube draw engine), although it didn’t actually win him the game.
Yeah, these rules aren’t for balance (I think it’s close enough as is), but for playability. The game is a turn-by-turn puzzle, but one person’s move can invalidate your plans (as with all games with a good amount of interaction). Games like that tend to do better if there’s an element of speed to who can complete their task first, so I like to break turns into smaller pieces and interleave them.
tl;dr: On your turn, instead of placing all of your cubes, choose one: place a single cube or reset.
Cube placement details: If you can activate a technology at that point (because its slots are filled), you must. If you have no cubes after placing, draw back up to three (or as many as possible: this does not force a reset).
Reset details: You can reset even if you have cubes left in your bag, or cubes left unassigned — these are placed back in your bag with the ones in the “unused cubes area”. This house rule amplifies city effects, but I think that makes for a better game, honestly.
General details: Optional actions are still optional and still unlimited: you can take them before and/or after your cube placement. Everyone still gets one more turn after victory conditions are met, but that turn is just a single cube placement at best.
I like playing the developer role with published games, especially if I can turn a mediocre game into one that I really enjoy.